God will refurbish the earth. But
when God judges those works
by fire at the great white throne
judgment (Revelation 20: 11) it is
people He will judge and those
people not found in the book of
life —i.e. not saved—will be cast
into the lake of fire” (Revelation

20: 13–15).

Now looking at Revelation 6:14:“And the heaven departed as ascroll when it is rolled together;and every mountain and islandwere moved out of their places[emphasis added].”It cannot mean the destructionof the starry heavens either. Fromthe second part, it could signify therefurbishment of the atmosphericheavens because it seems toindicate from “every mountain andisland were moved” that the earth’ssurface is reworked. This argumentis strengthened by Revelation 21: 1itself which concludes with “therewas no more sea”. So if this has aliteral fulfilmentit must occur withthe refurbishment of the earth surface,thus the earth survives but the surfaceis remade. Then why not “heaven”also, meaning the atmospheric heavenaround the earth?

The preceding verse Revelation
6:13:
“And the stars of heaven fell to the
earth, even as a fig tree casts her
untimely figs, when she is shaken of
a mighty wind [emphasis added].”
The stars of heaven cannot
literally fall to the earth. Under the
historical interpretation of biblical
prophecy Revelation 6: 13 is interpreted
to mean the dethroning of earthly
rulers. It is symbolic language.
Therefore, these verses probably have
no literal fulfilment.

Similarly with Isaiah 34:4:“And all the host of heaven shallbe dissolved, and the heavens shallbe rolled together as a scroll: andall their host shall fall down, as theleaf falls off from the vine, andas a falling fig from the fig tree[emphasis added].”(Note Revelation 6: 13–14 is areference to Isaiah 34: 4.)

Chapter 34 of Isaiah describes
God’s judgments on the wicked.
If verse 3, “the mountains shall be
melted with their blood”, cannot be
literal, then why assume that the
following “And all the host of heaven
shall be dissolved ...” (verse 4) to be
literal?

Of Isaiah 34: 4, John Gill1 wrote:“And all the hosts of heaven shallbe dissolved.‘Pine away’, as withsickness, grow languid, becomeobscure, lose their light, and beturned into blood and darkness;this figure is used to express thehorror of this calamity, as if thevery heavens themselves, and thesun, and moon, and stars, wereaffected with it; see (Isaiah 13: 10)and the heavens shall be rolledtogether as a scroll;a book, orvolume, which when rolled up, oneletter of it could not be read; and itwas the manner formerly of makingand writing books in the form of aroll; hence the word volume; andhere it signifies that there shouldbe such a change in the heavens,as that not a star should be seen,much less the sun or moon; andmay signify the utter removal andabolition of all dignities and offices,supreme and subordinate, civil andecclesiastical, in the whole Romanjurisdiction; thus the destructionof Rome Pagan is described in(Revelation 6: 14) ... from whencethe language seems to be borrowed:and all their host shall fall down,as the leaf falleth off from the vine,and as a falling fig from the fig tree;that is, the stars should fall down:by whom may be meant personsin office, that made a considerablefigure; who shall fall from theirstations, in which they shone withmuch splendour and grandeur, asleaves fall from trees in autumn,particularly the vine; or as unripeand rotten figs fall from the figtree when shaken by a violentwind; the same metaphor is usedin (Revelation 6: 13) [underlinedemphasis added].”On the following verse, Isaiah34: 5, John Gill wrote:“For my sword shall be bathed inheaven ... That is, the sword of theLord, as it is called in the next verse(Isaiah 34: 6), and it is he that isspeaking; it designs the vengeanceof the Lord, the punishment hewill inflict on the wicked, saidto be ‘bathed in heaven’, becausedetermined and prepared there; theallusion may be to the bathing ofswords in some sort of liquor, toharden or brighten them, and sofit them for use. Kimchi rendersit, ‘my sword’ which is ‘in heavenshall be bathed’, that is, in the bloodof the slain; ‘heaven’ may denote ...the whole Roman Pagan empire in(Revelation 12: 7) and may designthe principal men in it, thosethat are in the highest places andoffices, in whom the sword of theLord shall be first drenched, and beas it were satiated and inebriatedwith the blood of them ... .”John Gill understood this verseas a metaphorical description of theremoval of those in power; nothingto do with a literal heaven and starsfalling or dissolving.

Therefore 2 Peter 3: 10–13,
Revelation 6: 14 and Isaiah 34: 4 cannot
be used to straightjacket a literal
interpretation on the destruction of
the whole starry universe, and thus
it follows one does not interpret the
Hebrew word םָלוֹע (òwlam) in Psalms
148: 6 and 89: 37, translated ‘forever’, as
not meaning ‘eternal’ because of a prior
commitment to a certain eschatology.